"FINALLY!!" Prince shouted as we found the main road.

Invent chuckled, "We probably should have known that we shouldn't have let Ice lead at all."

"How come you are so bad at directions but knows so much?" Volcan asked, looking at Ice.

Ice shrugs, "Things change over the years but I've always been bad with directions..." looking down he added, "Plus I'm only ever around for a few weeks to a month at most every time so I don't have time to learn the routes..." We all stared at him in surprise causing him to look at us and blush lightly, "W-What?"

"Nothing, we've just never heard you talk about your past so much before." I gently responded, smiling lightly at him earning me a tiny half-smile.

He opened his mouth to respond but a cold laugh echoed around us suddenly, "Mwahahahaha" We all started looking around, grabbing our weapons as the sky started to darken, the ground rumbled and shook as tons of monsters appeared out of thin air.

Ice looked around, concernedly but when he spoke, his voice was small and sad, "The Dark King...he's here..." We all glanced at Ice and followed his gaze to a skinny man. His hair was pure black while his eyes were a dark brown. His clothes were a black regal suit and the sword he carried was the same black material that was used on the buildings in the Fire Kingdom.

The man smirked at Ice and his voice had a sadly cold tone to it, "We meet again, Ice."

Prince spiked in shock before growling, "How do you know his name?"

King Darkness briefly glanced at him, "We have known each other for centuries now...always fighting each other." He looked almost sad about that and when I took a guick glance at Ice, I saw pain and sadness mirrored on his own face.

"Whatever, we're going to send you back to your shadowy home!" Volcan snarled, pulling his weapons from their sheaths. The rest of us followed suit, pulling our own artifact weapons from their sheaths/holders.

King Darkness began to laugh, "If you think you have the time to be worried about me, then your more of a fool than Ice is." Suddenly we heard multiple sounds coming from all directions. As we looked around we saw them, the hoard of monsters coming toward us. Fenrir, giants, Ogres, all different types of monsters approaching us.

"Shit..." I whispered staring at Fenrir who was the only monster that we couldn't defeat, "How do we deal with Fenrir?"

Prince gripped his magic sword, clenching his teeth as he snarled, "We can't beat him so what else can we do against him?"

Volcan looked thoughtful before he finally responded, "If we can't beat him then maybe...we could trap him? Flame, you focus on Fenrir and see if you can't use your fairy magic to trap or bind him, the rest of us will deal with the other monsters...Ice go hide until we're done." We all nodded and ran to do our part, but Ice made no move at all. Oddly enough, the monsters seemed to ignore him completely as if they could tell he wasn't worth the effort. Oh well, I had bigger issues to deal with right now, Fenrir wasn't going to give me the time to think too much on Ice's situation.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

"Hey! Fenrir! Over here!" I shouted at Fenrir as I approached. Fenrir snarled at me, baring his blood-soaked fangs at me and I almost fled but managed not to. I took a deep breath and looking down briefly at Kraken, came up with an idea for how to prevent Fenrir from attacking us. "Kraken...if I use the magic wand do you think I can manage this?"

"You can do anything so long as you have the magic wand to assist you." Kraken answered simply, jumping onto my shoulder, "I'll help you."

"How?" I asked.

Kraken's smile was sad as she responded, "It's almost over, we just need to last until after this battle and then...it'll be over so I'll lend you this knowledge...." Kraken's body glowed a brilliant shade of red for a split second and it was like I suddenly knew even more magic then before...and one of them was going to be perfect for this moment. Closing my eyes, I focused my magic and my thoughts onto the spell I needed.

When I felt the power grow to it's absolute max, I opened my eyes as I spoke, "Elemental binding!" As if on cue, several things happened at once. First was the earth, vines that suddenly had flames wrapping around them, along with water, these vines wrapped around Fenrir's legs and waist to prevent him from moving. The last thing that happened was the wind picked up so fast that it sent Fenrir flying. "Wow..." I whispered amazed by the high leveled forgotten magic but why was it forgotten? I looked toward the others to see a fierce battle going on.

"Come on uglies, you can do better than that!" Prince shouted at the Ogres while Sphinx ran around barking. Prince was fighting much better than he ever had and he seemed much more advanced, his sword seemed to be glowing.

"Ugh..." Invent grunted as she was helping Volcan to take on the giant. Both of them seemed to be even more powerful as well. Invent was slamming her hammer down onto the giants head, looking like an amazing warrior. Volcan was using his double swords to slash at it's legs and arms when they slammed down onto the ground. While they were all fighting, I noticed Ice watching sadly but I also noticed that King Darkness was also watching sadly before he spoke coldly to Ice.

"They will lose to my blade," He had a sword in his hands and was heading toward Prince, "Too bad you'll always be the useless one in the group, always unable to fight or protect anyone."

"PRINCE!!" I shouted about to run toward him. It felt like time had slowed down so much as Volcan and Invent looked over. At the same time, I saw Ice, glaring at King Darkness, he's body starting to glow in a strange light.

We all watched him in confusion before Invent seemed to realize something as she suddenly shouted at Prince, "Prince! Cover Flame now!" She tackled Volcan causing him to give a surprised scream. Prince moved quickly, just managing to tackle me before a blast of light and power zapped through the whole area. It lasted for a good few minutes before it finally faded and Prince slowly got off of me, blushing a bit.

"Wow..." Prince whispered as he looked around. King Darkness was gone along with the remaining monsters. Invent had also gotten off of Volcan who like Prince was prepared for another attack. Ice was standing there a sad smile on his face.

"Good job everyone..." Ice spoke sadly.

"We won...WE WON!!" Prince shouted, "Alright! This means the Darkest Hour is fully gone right?" We all started celebrating, not noticing the sadness deepening in Ice's eyes until Kitty spoke.

"Ice..." She whispered. We all looked toward Ice only to see that he and Kitty were faintly glowing.

"Ice?" I asked, taking a step toward him.

He smiled sadly at us, "Congratulations chosen heroes. You've won this battle but not the war...I have to go now...back to sleep until the next battle...Thank you for being my friends...goodbye..." We all reached out our hands toward him but it was too late, Ice and Kitty had vanished, leaving us behind.